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Tailgate touchdown: N.J. caterers prepping for biggest game of their careers

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âI want the food to look and feel good,â says Vonda McPherson, of the Italian hot dogs and three kinds of funnel cakes she and her staff at Vonda's Kitchen in Newark will be preparing for the official VIP NFL tailgate party.
(Aristide Economopoulos/The Star-Ledger )

The caterer and chef-owner of Vonda’s Kitchen in Newark has been at it for days already, grimacing as she mimes working the rolling pin — commercial puff pastry just isn’t up to her standards. But as one of the caterers for the official VIP NFL tailgate party at the Meadowlands Racetrack, she’s not complaining. It’s the biggest, most high-profile gig a caterer could ask for (and one of the best-paying, although McPherson won’t say how much she is earning).

“When they call, be prepared to answer the call,” she told herself. “It’s big time.”

The NFL wouldn’t say how many local caterers got the nod for the event, although Danielle D’Angelo of D’Angelo Italian Market in Princeton confirmed they will also be representing the Garden State at the VIP party.

The selection process was long, with McPherson comparing it to a high-stakes version of the television show “Chopped.” She helped cater themed events for members of the NFL Host Committee; each time she returned, she says, there seemed to be fewer chefs.

McPherson is a self-taught chef, the youngest of four siblings who took over the kitchen from her mother, who worked and attended school at night, when she was seven. For years, she traveled the tristate area as a medical supply saleswoman, pushing coronary stents on cardiologists — which is a bit ironic, considering the fried chicken, mac and cheese and smoked beef sliders that figure prominently on the Vonda’s Kitchen menu today.

One day, shivering on the ferry home to Jersey City, she decided she’d had enough. “This is going to be it,” she recalls, sitting at a window seat in her eclectic West Kinney Street eatery. “I’m going to figure something I love and do that.”

She opened Shack’s BBQ in Elizabeth next to her father’s bail bondsman storefront — he’s also a killer cook, she confides — where her soul food and barbecue won raves. (“You may not find a better chopped barbecue sandwich anywhere in New Jersey,” pronounced The Star-Ledger’s Peter Genovese.)

But her catering business grew, and eventually she closed Shack’s. She wasn’t looking for a new restaurant, but one of her clients, the Newark Housing Authority, convinced her to take over a retail space on the ground floor of one of its new developments a few block west of downtown. It also had space for catering, so she agreed — despite its somewhat out of the way location, it’s now a hot spot for Newark honchos and packed on the weekends with families. (She’s also opening another restaurant and jazz club close to the Prudential Center in late March or early April.)

A few months ago, the Essex County Office of Small Business Development alerted her to the Super Bowl catering opportunities, and she showcased her food for the host committee. For one event, she developed bites representing New Jersey and each of the five boroughs — Italian hot dogs for New Jersey, Thai chicken wings for Queens, mini cheesecakes for Brooklyn. Presentation counted, not just the food, but the table decor as well.

Her Italian hot dogs — mini sausages encased in puff pastry with sauteed peppers and her spicy “kick” sauce — were a hit, and she’ll be serving up those and three kinds of funnel cakes at the tailgate party.

Danielle D’Angelo, whose parents opened their first market in Jackson in 2000 after running a deli on Wall Street for years, thought they would be a long shot. They served the Sicilian specialty annelletti, little pasta rings (their pitch: “Go for the ring!”), as well as chicken Parmesan, filet mignon crostini, and rice balls shaped like footballs.

“It’s nerve-wracking when you try to put your best food forward and you really want something,” D’Angelo says. “It does add a level of credibility to our market. It’s certainly motivating for us. We’re really honored that we’ve been chosen.”

Crews from both D’Angelo markets will be working a full 12-hour day to prep the food for the party.

After McPherson got the contract, she had to submit the names of 20 workers for credentials, which required background checks, even though she was only allowed a maximum of 10. “It’s serious. Serious.”

She’s already started on the puff pastry, and when she was told she wouldn’t be able to fry on site, she solicited advice from her caterer friends to figure out a way to keep the funnel cakes crisp: Jell-O. Says McPherson: “I want the food to look and feel good.”